brass band | music clip of the day

Category: brass band

Saturday, 7/2/11

Here’s a different take—one deeply indebted to Lester Bowie—on the
brass band.

Dave Douglas & Brass Ecstasy
DD, trumpet; Louis Bonilla, trombone; Vincent Chancey, horn (AKA French horn); Marcus Rojas, tuba; Nasheet Waits, drums

“Bowie,” recording session (Spirit Moves, 2009)

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“Spirit Moves,” “This Love Affair,” “Twilight of the Dogs”
Live, Washington, D.C., 2009

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lagniappe

reading table

How can I possibly sleep
This moonlit evening?
Come, my friends,
Let’s sing and dance
All night long.

—Ryokan (1758-1831), trans. John Stevens

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Friday, 7/1/11

scenes from New Orleans
(an occasional series)

Rebirth Brass Band, live, Maple Leaf Bar (where RBB plays Tuesday nights), New Orleans, 2011

“Big Chief”

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“I Like It Like That”

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More? Here. And here. And here. And here.

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Monday, 5/9/11

scenes from New Orleans
(an occasional series)

Free Spirit Brass Band, live, New Orleans (Bourbon Street), 3/20/11

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Monday, 3/14/11

Albert King

Fontella Bass

Art Ensemble of Chicago

Fela Anikulapo Kuti

Few musicians travel so widely—or so well.

Lester Bowie, trumpet, October 11, 1941-November 8, 1999

Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy (Steve Turre, trombone; Phillip Wilson, drums)
Live, Germany (Berlin), 1986

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#2 (Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love For You”)

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Lester and drummer Phillip Wilson were kindred spirits. Like Lester, the drummer came out of St. Louis. And like Lester, he roamed freely. Adventurous jazz (Art Ensemble of Chicago), funky soul (Stax Records sessions), hard-rocking blues (Paul Butterfield Blues Band): to each he brought the same hands, the same feet, the same ears.

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lagniappe

Bill Cosby on Lester Bowie

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2011

Tuesday, 3/8/11

Today, in celebration of Fat Tuesday, let’s go to New Orleans.

Rebirth Brass Band, Treme Sidewalk Steppers Parade
Live, New Orleans, 2/6/11

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More? Here. And here. And here.

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TBC Brass Band, Krewe de Vieux Parade
Live, New Orleans, 2/19/11

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A great brass band and a great mix have something in common. You can tell a great mix—as we used to say at Alligator Records—even from the next room. And you can tell a great brass band even from the next block.

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2011

Thursday, 1/6/11

street music

The brass band goes uptown.

Asphalt Orchestra, live, New York

#1 (2009)

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#2 (2010)

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2010

Monday, 12/6/10

Here’s more from the city that does death like no other.

Funeral for Juanita Brooks, New Orleans, 2009

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lagniappe

Here’s a taste of the Syl Johnson show I recently saw.

Syl Johnson, “Same Kind of Thing,” live, Chicago, 11/27/10

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2010

Thursday, 8/26/10

When I die, I’m moving to New Orleans for the funeral.

Funeral, Trumpeter John Brunious, New Orleans, 2/23/08

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2010

Saturday, 8/21/10

replay: a clip too good for just one day

If spirit could be sold, New Orleans would be rich.

Rebirth Brass Band, live, New Orleans, 2009

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lagniappe

Brass band musicians are a wild bunch. They’re hard to control. The street funk that the Rebirth Brass Band plays definitely isn’t traditional—it might be in thirty years time.

—Lajoie “Butch” Gomez (in Mick Burns, Keeping the Beat on the Street: The New Orleans Brass Band Renaissance [2006])

(Originally posted on 9/11/09.)